As a result of the proliferation of digital images and video, numerous content sharing systems have emerged. Generally, these systems are implemented using either a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture or a centrally hosted architecture. Regardless of the architecture, the sharing system enables an owner to share content with both invited and uninvited guests. However, one issue is that guests are provided the same Quality of Service (QoS) and content quality regardless of their relationship to the owner of the content. For example, a guest that is completely unknown to the content owner may receive the same QoS and content quality as the content owner's friends and family. As such, there is a need for a system and method for controlling QoS and content quality in a content sharing system based on user relationships.